From the Oxford Mail:

Two letterbombs have been delivered to science firms in Oxfordshire today. A woman was hurt when a package exploded as she opened the post at Orchid Cellmark, in Blacklands Way, at Abingdon Business Park, at 9.15am. And at 1.45pm police were called to another firm in Culham where another suspicious package was found. … Both packages are being linked to animal rights protesters.

The article also mentions Oxford University, where the construction of an animal testing laboratory has prompted a number of attacks from animal rights terrorists. I'm sure Richard Dawkins, Oxford's resident professor for the public understanding of science, would love to defend his colleagues and educate the public on the necessity of animal testing. Too bad he's busy with his campaign of painting religious parents as child abusers.

Here is an article by Dawkins where he writes about the execution of Saddam Hussein (HT: Chris at Mixing Memory). In it, Dawkins writes that the execution of Hussein was an act of vandalism.
Richard Dawkins wrote:

"Hussein is not in the same league as Hitler, but, nevertheless, in a small way his execution represents a wanton and vandalistic destruction of important research data." (my emphasis)

As Chris points out, this is scientism run rampant. Note that Dawkins' concern isn't the "destruction of a human life," it is the "destruction of important research data." To Dawkins, Saddam Hussein's worth, if he had any, was that of a lab rat, not of a human being.

But the more important thing to point out is that Dawkins still, as far as I know, hasn't spoken out yet on some very real vandalism that has occurred on his own campus, Oxford University. We've written quite a bit about the ALF here at TT, if only to point out the inconsistencies that people like Dawkins have with regard to what they view as real "threats" to science. Surely the vandalism and scare-mongering tactics of groups like the ALF are at least as dangerous to science as ID is. I admit that it is very possible that Dawkins is afraid to speak out against the ALF, given the threats they have made against everybody associated with Oxford. I wouldn't blame him if that were the case. But there are real threats and there is threatiness and the fact that Dawkins can speak out against ID without fear of his life suggests that ID falls in the latter category.

Richard Dawkins is having an e-mail battle with Bill Dembski. "I had not given the Blasphemy Challenge any thought until you called it to my attention," says Dawkins. Actually, given that evidence of much thought is lacking, I'm not surprised that Dawkins gives little thought to the things promoted on his own official web page. But then Dawkins does a little bragging:

Now that you have done so, I do not seem to feel strongly one way or the other. As that admirable bumper sticker has it, Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime. So, am I going to send in my own film clip denying the Holy Ghost? No, that is not what Oxford professors do, they write books instead.

Not quite. Oxford professors also hang out in basements with kids and bash religion. Look, while one Oxford professor is doing what he can do to make it illegal for parents to take their children to church, another Oxford professor, David Weatherall, has been behaving like a real scientist and trying to help the public understand the importance of scientific research.

This is an open thread, meaning that for a change, it is you, not me, who decide what the discussion will be about. In the vain attempt to have just a little influence on the topic, here's a couple of stories.

Read the rest of this entry »

PETA is an organization fighting for "total animal liberation", equating the keeping of pets with slavery. Isn't it then ironic that PETA run animal shelters, trying to find homes for homeless cats and dogs? Not really, since PETA employees kill more animals than they save condemn to servitude. In fact, non-PETA run shelters in the same area have a higher success rate in finding homes to their animals.

This is just one of the many revealing facts from the Penn & Teller show on PETA. There's quite a bit of swearing, and especially Penn gets very vocal with righteous indignation. So by all means, sit down and watch it:

As Richard Dawkins continues his speaking engagements as a major leader in the Anti-Religion Movement, the animal rights activists are expanding their efforts to eliminate more scientific research:

Animal rights activists are using freedom of information laws to draw up a 'hit list' of universities which conduct research on monkeys Letters sent to six universities requesting details of experiments involving primates have sparked panic among researchers. The revelation raises the spectre of extremists widening their focus beyond Oxford University where militants are waging a terror campaign to derail a planned £20million animal research facility.
["¦]
They are concerned activists are attempting to discover the names of the 10 universities engaged in forms of primate research.
Until now, universities have attempted to keep their primate testing facilities secret amid fears of attack.
The Home Office has a list of institutions doing this work but it is strictly classified and not shared even with the Department of Trade and Industry, which is responsible for science.
["¦]
Simon Festing, executive director, said: "The fear is that this will be a hit list. If they identify the roughly ten institutions which do primate research and put it online, all it needs is some nutcase locally to follow a researcher home and carry out an attack.
"At the moment, animal rights extremists in the UK are sending hoax letter bombs. Actual injuries have been minimal but it is the fear that is the issue. These universities are scared for their researchers."

In this case, the fear among the community of researchers is justified.

I can also report that universities do not hide their evolutionary research for fear that creationists or IDists will target the researchers or universities. So how does Dawkins, with all his "Religion as the root of all evil" rhetoric, explain the fact that scientists are not hiding from religious people and are hiding from someone who says, "We have a long campaign to ban primate research completely. Primates are our next of kin."

This is a thread about nothing, and therefore everything. In case you don't know what to talk about, here's some links a couple of months old - by blogosphere standards, an eternity.

Wesley J. Smith writes about the PETA, who "liberates" animals from a life with humans - by killing them and leaving their bodies in a dumpster.

Joe Carter writes about "the theocracy canard", the belief that the US is turning into a theocracy. Although Jonathan Rowe agrees with Carter that much of the theocracy rhetoric is overblown, he still takes exception to some of his claims. For more about the interplay between church and politics, check out what Timothy Goddard has to say.

Finally, in The New York Review of Books, a triple-review of books on evo-devo, challenging and revising the traditional Neo-Darwinian synthesis.

Here's an ad from the Center for Consumer Freedom, criticizing animal rights extremists who slow down medical research. (HT: Secondhand Smoke)

And from the hit show South Park, here's what happens when 9 year old Stan meets a group of animal rights extremists. Gory scenes and naughty words may occur.

If you have something on your chest, now is the time to get it off. Some random stories on a common theme:

John Hawks: "I would smile all day long, if it guaranteed a panda getting punched in the face. I find them really annoying."

Panda bites man woman: "A panda cub bit off part of the thumb of an American visitor who was feeding the animal at a reserve in southwest China, state media reported Thursday."

Man bites panda: "A drunken Chinese migrant worker jumped into a panda enclosure at the Beijing Zoo, was bitten by the bear and retaliated by chomping down on the animal's back, state media said Wednesday."

I find this funny on so many levels. And wrong… But mostly funny. (Click to enlarge.)

While all of the "pro-science" blogs are busy being scared of intelligent design destroying science and democracy, I thought I'd show our readers how a real threat to science looks like:

According to the federal government's lengthy criminal indictment, the [Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty] USA Web site encouraged members and sympathizers to engage in "direct action" - activities that "operate outside the confines of the legal system." SHAC USA suggested "top 20 terror tactics," including threatening to injure or kill a person's family members, assaulting a person by spraying cleaning fluid in their eyes, vandalizing or flooding a person's home, firebombing a person's car, breaking the windows of a person's home while family members are inside, and sending e-mail "bombs" to crash computers.

(HT: Wesley J. Smith at Secondhand Smoke)